Berlinguer, I Love You

90 minutesCountryItalyLanguageItalian

Berlinguer ti voglio bene (internationally released as Berlinguer, I Love You) is a 1977 Italian comedy film written and directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci. It is the debut film for both Bertolucci and Roberto Benigni.

It is based on the stage play Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, which Bertolucci wrote and directed in 1975 and in which Benigni played the character of Mario Cioni, a character he later resumed in the television mini-series Onda libera.^[1][2] The title quotes Cioni's declaration of love for Enrico Berlinguer, then leader of the Italian Communist Party.

Plot

Mario is a man of the underclass of Tuscany, who works as a construction worker. His friends make jokes of him, but Mario is indifferent, living in the myth of Enrico Berlinguer. Mario has an Oedipus complex and is very attached to his mother. When he loses a game of poker with a friend, he tells Mario that the penalty is that he must have sex with his own mother. Mario is disgusted, but gradually he falls in love with his mother. However, she rejects him and prefers to go to bed with the friend who made the cruel bet with Mario. Mario finds his friend is now his stepfather.

Cast

• Roberto Benigni: Mario Cioni
• Alida Valli: La Mamma
• Carlo Monni: Bozzone
• Mario Pachi: Gnorante

References

External links

• Berlinguer, I Love You at IMDb
• Berlinguer, I Love You at Rotten Tomatoes
• Modernity degraded of the peripheries: an analysis of «Berlinguer, ti voglio bene», Linda Brodo, Stefano Brugnolo, in "Intersezioni" 3/2014, pp. 473–498, Il Mulino.